TV Tangled Up In Web
A very long article on web-based series crossing over to television. Here is an excerpt that mentions the two online series Rosario is working on.
“Through experimentation, “Afterworld” creator Stan Rogow determined that Web crawlers want episodes short — 3-minute installments worked best — and they want them updated daily. He said it took him and his co-creators a long time to map out the 130-episode sci-fi show, which was a popular skein on MySpace, spending north of $3 million to produce it. Although he says they will “do OK” financially, Electric Farm decided that 130 episodes were too many and will do 50 at a time going forward. Their next skein, “Gemini Division,” stars Rosario Dawson.”
Source: Variety
TV tangled up in web
Internet fare struggles to land solid base
By DIANE GARRETT
“Quarterlife,” beacon of dreams for many a scribe, has yet to make a dime online. The web skein has found a steady aud since its early November launch, but its viewership is tiny compared with online sensations such as “The Landlord” and “I’m (bleeping) Ben Affleck,” last week’s answer to “I’m (bleeping) Matt Damon.”
Marshall Herskovitz and Ed Zwick’s twentysomething serial, which bowed on NBC last week to miniscule ratings, isn’t alone. Programmers are still trying to figure out how to build — and retain — an aud for serialized shows online. Last week, Disney-ABC Television Group launched Stage 9 Digital Media, an experimental new media division, bowing the comedy skein “Squeegees” on Feb. 28.
Web mavens like to compare the medium’s programming to television circa 1947, when networks were still trying to figure out what would translate on the smallscreen. To gauge what works best online, they are experimenting with episode length, series duration and frequency.
After all, primetime doesn’t exist online; nor do runtime restrictions nor minimum series orders. Comedy tends to work best, but other genres have gotten some traction online, most notably Michael Eisner’s “Prom Queen” thriller and the sci-fi “Afterworld.”
So far, there’s one general rule of thumb: Shorter is better — but it’s got to be good, or viewers will quickly bail.
“I haven’t seen a lot of regular programming that has really taken off yet,” says former Mouse House TV and UPN topper Dean Valentine, who launched Comedy.com a couple of weeks ago. “There’s very little that has burned up the broadband wires.”
He believes the real money won’t start flowing into Web programming until someone manages to create a brand online, but concedes that isn’t an easy task given the untamed nature of the Internet.
“It’s like evaluating what worked after the first season of network television,” says Brent Weinstein, who runs 60Frames, an agency developing a variety of web series with artists including Joel and Ethan Coen.
At this point, the biggest online hits tend to be viral one-offs rather than episodes from ongoing skeins. “The Landlord,” starring Will Ferrell and Adam McKay’s foul-mouthed two-year-old, has racked up more than 50 million viewings since its debut on FunnyorDie.com last April, and Sarah Silverman’s “I’m (bleeping) Matt Damon,” which originally aired on b.f. Jimmy Kimmel’s latenight talker, got roughly 8 million viewings in a few weeks. “I’m (bleeping) Ben Affleck,” Kimmel’s “We Are the World” style response featuring cameos by Brad Pitt, Cameron Diaz and Robin Williams, was viewed by millions online a few days after it aired on his show Oscar night.
Web skeins, on the other hand, are lucky to nab 200,000 viewings per episode. “Quarterlife” maintained a relatively healthy aud of 100,000 an episode as the skein unfolded; its producers say total viewership amounted to 6 million viewings, with 4 million coming from MySpace and 1 million from the show’s dedicated website. (It drew a little over 3 million on Feb. 26 in its first — and likely only — airing on NBC).
The trick to establishing a web series, all agree, is to build a property that viewers want to return to, like they do with a newspaper or favorite TV show. Otherwise, programming won’t break through the many offerings online.
“People are still conditioned to one-offs rather than shows,” says Drew Reifenberger, who heads Turner’s Super Deluxe site. “It’s a definite challenge for us.”
The site has had more luck with self-contained comedy bits than with series incorporating ongoing plots. For instance, the last three installments in “Derek & Simon,” a web skein created by Bob Odenkirk, struggled a bit for that reason. Super Deluxe reworked upcoming skeins to make episodes stand alone better.
Through experimentation, “Afterworld” creator Stan Rogow determined that Web crawlers want episodes short — 3-minute installments worked best — and they want them updated daily. He said it took him and his co-creators a long time to map out the 130-episode sci-fi show, which was a popular skein on MySpace, spending north of $3 million to produce it. Although he says they will “do OK” financially, Electric Farm decided that 130 episodes were too many and will do 50 at a time going forward. Their next skein, “Gemini Division,” stars Rosario Dawson.
Online video consumption is soaring — topping 10 billion views Stateside in December, according to ComScore. The org determined that the average online video viewed lasted 2.8 minutes and that Google, which owns YouTube, accounted for 32.6% of the activity.
However, advertising, while also growing, is lagging. And it definitely doesn’t cover the cost of production for most of the Web series popping up online. To help underwrite the costs, producers are lining up sponsors, but even they don’t necessarily cover costs.
In November, Eisner told the New York Times that “Prom Queen” cost $3,000 per 90 seconds, that it made a couple thousand dollars and that the sequel lost money. “Quarterlife,” meanwhile, cost north of $80,000 per 8-minute episode; sponsorships by Toyota and Pepsi didn’t fully cover the costs.
“The amount of money some entrants are spending would never allow them to make money,” says Jim Moloshok, exec chair of GoFish, a network of children’s content and veteran of HBO, Yahoo and Warners. “I don’t think anybody is making any money yet. It’s a business that is supported by venture capitalists and investors trying to build for the future.”
Digital tenpercenters say they advised the scribes streaming into their offices during the strike that anything designed for online better be a passion project, because a big payday would be unlikely. They say plenty of writers remain excited about the ownership and creativity that online programming promises.
Undeterred by the fact “Quarterlife” has yet to make money, Herskovitz is actively seeking another series to mount alone.
“I’m dealing with the same frustrations everyone’s dealing with scripted online programming,” Herskovitz said in the wake of “Quarterlife’s” “disappointing” bow. “The numbers aren’t there yet. That’s just a fact of life.”
The good news, Reifenberger says, is that Net crawlers stumble on their programming every day, causing some unusual spikes in activity. And because it’s still a relatively small business, the stakes are lower, opening programming up to more experimentation.
“This is truly the fun part, because we are in a state of constant reinvention in terms of the business models and the entertainment business itself,” Rogow says.
“It’s still the early stages,” Reifenberger concurs. “Anybody that tells you they’ve got it all figured out is fooling themselves.”
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